November 17, 2005A hot new thing in high tech may actually
be 30 million years old. Glow-in-the-light African swallowtail
butterflies essentially have highly efficient LEDs embedded in their
wings, according to a study co-authored by physicist Pete Vukusic
(pictured above) that appears in tomorrow's issue of the journal
Science. (Read the full story: "Glowing Butterflies
Shine With Natural LEDs.")

Found in computer monitors,
brake lights, flashlights, and other electronics, efficient LEDs (light-emitting diodes) were only recently perfected by humans. But the same basic structures that make the new technology possibletiny mirror
systems and crystalshave apparently been lighting up butterfly
wings for millennia.

As a graduate student at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Alexei Erchak developed the first
prototype "high-efficient LED" in 2001. His take on the butterfly
discovery? It "means that butterflies are smarter than MIT students."